UPDATE: Violence due to protests against Trump’s immigration policy breaks out in New Jersey: “ICE fascists out” | Immigration in the United States
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The sun sets on the Delaney Hall detention center and the hundreds of people who, with banners and shouts, denounce the fascist drift in the United States already know what is coming to them. They have lived it the previous days and they know it will happen again tonight. First, the authorities will order the eviction. The protesters will resist. And then the pushing, the running, the tear gas, the rubber bullets and the wounded and arrested will come. “ICE, get out of New Jersey. We hate you here. You are fascists,” shouts a hooded young man against several dozen uniformed officers armed to the teeth. The State of New Jersey has relived these days what other places in the United States have already experienced: the indignation aroused by the brutal immigration policy of Donald Trump’s Government among those who advocate defending the rights of migrants. On this esplanade on the outskirts of the city of Newark, protesters have been showing their solidarity for days with those on the other side of the bars. Some detainees have gone on hunger strike to protest the degrading conditions they suffer. They report expired food with worms, lack of medical attention and beatings. They are an undetermined number of men and women locked up in a center with capacity for a thousand. They do not know how long they will be in this place due to some vague accusations that can be summarized in one: not having the papers in order. Virtually all the protesters define it as a “concentration camp” with which the Government wants to launch “ethnic cleansing.” Federal agents were guarding the Delaney Hall migrant detention center in Newark, New Jersey, this Friday. David Dee Delgado (REUTERS)Faced with the script repeated throughout this week, the novelty arrives on Friday. The previous days the charge was carried out by ICE, the acronym in English for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service of the federal government. But on Friday, when it was almost nine o’clock at night, local time, those gathered there told each other what they had just heard: the State Police gave them a period of 15 minutes to evacuate the entire area. They were moments of disbelief among many of those gathered there, who saw how the Democratic governor, Mikie Sherrill, who had requested in the previous days to visit the center to learn about the sanitary conditions of the prisoners, now gave the order to expel the protesters. Shortly after, a garrison of police appears with their transparent shields, supported by officers on horseback and, behind them, patrol cars that are expelling those who remained there. They launch tear gas and explosions are heard that are reminiscent of a pitched war. Several boys complained of having received severe blows. And they protest because all this comes at the hands of the state police. Criticism of the governor Charlene Walker, head of the Faith in New Jersey association, cannot explain why Governor Sherrill, a politician seeking re-election in next November’s elections, has given the eviction order. “In any authoritarian regime, some decide to be complicit with power. And that has happened today with our governor,” he concedes after thinking about it a little. Before all this happened, the governor of New Jersey had already announced that she would give orders to her police to assume control, which, she claimed, had become a focus of tension and confrontations in the last week. Sherrill, who had previously called for the closure of Delaney Hall, said he wanted to ensure both freedom of assembly and public safety. “I will not give ICE the pretext to expand its operations in our State,” he said in a press conference. The protest these days has so far only resulted in injuries. But the tension over what is happening to the thousands and thousands of migrants detained throughout the United States is evident. It can explode at any moment as it did in January in Minnesota, when two American citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, were killed by federal agents, events that ultimately cost the Trump Administration’s Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, her job. Protesters this Friday in front of the Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey.David Dee Delgado (REUTERS)His successor, Markwayne Mullin, is now facing events with incendiary potential in New Jersey. The protests threaten to grow in a country that has not yet forgotten the days of the Minneapolis siege. This week, when asked about what was happening in Newark, Mullin denied that there was any hunger strike, something that is contradicted by the testimonies of those who have spoken with the detainees and their families. It has been a week since, given the complexity of the situation, the authorities at the Delaney Hall center had prohibited visits from family members, increasing the desperation of the detainees and their loved ones. Li Adorno, a volunteer with a family support association, describes in a tent near the detention center the harsh conditions that people who come here to visit have to suffer. It tells the story of a woman who lived in Florida and who with great effort raised the money for the ticket to see her husband. Once here, she was denied entry because her clothing did not comply with the rules, which prevent women from wearing open shoes, heels or skirts. For this reason, Adorno and his NGO Semillas have a drum with clothes. To help family members in that situation. To offer them free legal support, although the growing number of inmates now forces them to put almost everyone on a waiting list. And above all, they are there to give moral support to people at a time when they need it most, when their loved ones are locked up and they don’t know what the future holds. Among the crowd, two young people record the protesters—or, as the conservative Fox network calls them, “anti-ICE agitators”—that they encounter. The two of them work for the Trumpist media outlet Voice of America and sometimes they get into fights with the rest of the people. A man tells him to his face that they are so bigoted that they defend Trump even if he appears in the Epstein papers and that they would do so even if there were images of the president raping a minor. The situation seems to be heating up. But at that moment two bodyguards come out who are there to guarantee that the two representatives of the Trumpist milieu leave here without a scratch. Clashes this Friday between the New Jersey State Police and pro-migrant protesters in Newark. OLGA FEDOROVA (EFE) One of the problems that what happened these days in New Jersey brings to light is the almost omnipotent power of ICE. Reverend Archange Antoine has come to support the people gathered here, where he has his community. He criticizes that the agents who in theory were only there to control the borders and customs have become an organization outside the law, with a million-dollar budget to do as they please. “They push people against vehicles, spray pepper spray, shoot, arrest a congressman and even attack a senator. ICE is out of control and has one of the largest budgets in the entire federal government, close to $1 billion,” he says. Next to him, threateningly, several ICE cars display their motto: “Defend the country.” This Friday night they have not intervened. But no one can guarantee that they won’t do it tomorrow.
Global Impact:
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Source: This article was originally published by Internacional en EL PAÍS and adapted for our international English-speaking audience.
Read the original article here.